Homelessness

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Nearly a quarter of the entire U.S. homeless population resides in California—about 130,000 people. Today, four of the five major American cities with the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness are in the state. To illustrate how dire the problem is, San Francisco has a rate of unsheltered homelessness of 60 per 10,000—10 times greater than the national average.

Why would the homeless move to California? In my mind there are probably 2 reasons. First the weather. It is generally warm. Second the liberal attitude towards drug use.

But California is not providing the support services to take care of the homeless. They are left to fend for themselves. They are not provided shelter or many other services, such as mental health.

“The hygiene situation is just horrendous” for people living on the streets, says Glenn Lopez, a physician with St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, who treats homeless patients in Los Angeles County. “It becomes just like a Third World environment, where their human feces contaminate the areas where they are eating and sleeping.”

There were 167 cases of typhus from January 1, 2018, through February 1 of this year, up from 125 in 2013 and 13 in 2008, according to the California Public Health Department.

Typhus is a bacterial infection that can cause a high fever, stomach pain, and chills but can be treated with antibiotics. Outbreaks are more common in overcrowded and trash-filled areas that attract rats.

The recent typhus outbreak began last fall, when health officials reported clusters of the flea-borne disease in downtown Los Angeles and Compton. They also have occurred in Pasadena, where the problems are likely due to people feeding stray cats carrying fleas.

Infectious diseases—some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages—are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.

Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus—a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals—in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.

People in Washington State have been infected with Shigella bacteria, which is spread through feces and causes the diarrheal disease shigellosis, as well as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever, which spreads through body lice.

Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio, and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.

Source: Medieval Diseases Are Infecting California’s Homeless

The disease that concerns me the most is the Black Death. This is a truly horrible way to die. It is also called the bubonic plague.

A new public health threat may be on the verge of making a deadly appearance: bubonic plague—known in the Middle Ages as the “Black Death”—it was responsible killing about 60% of the population of Eurasia in the mid-1300s.

Rats carrying the bubonic plague have been detected in Los Angeles. And if their numbers grow, we may land up with a full blown epidemic.

The other part of the problem is that California environmentalist are restricting the state from using normal pest control methods to reduce the rat population.

The mix of conditions that have caused alarm is, so far, unique to California, though progressive environmental philosophy may extend its reach. The reason is the state’s growing discomfort with modern chemistry paired with the California trial bar’s love of industrial chemical dollars, in this case, second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs). For the past five years, L.A.’s Department of Recreation and Parks has forgone the use of SGARs, acting on proposed restrictions from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Lawmakers in Sacramento have proposed banning SGARs entirely, making it even more difficult to cull California’s burgeoning disease-borne rodent population.

Source: Official Lies, Bubonic Plague, And California's Homeless Challenge

So if you ever fear of becoming homeless, do your research. There are federal government programs that can come to your aid. Here is a link to one program. Continuum of Care (CoC)Homeless Assistance Program
There are State programs that can provide assistance. And also there are voluntary groups that can offer assistance. Assisting Homeless People

Stay safe and don't become unsheltered homeless.

People come here for the weather, sure, and maybe for the drug culture.

But they also come here for the hand-outs and the higher tolerance for the slacker lifestyle.

Slackers (i.e., "Beach Bums", et cetera) have been part of the California Culture since the earliest days of Hollywood (maybe earlier).

The hand-outs come from the shelters, soup-kitchens and well-meaning SJWs who keep homeless people dependent on those hand-outs instead of providing the one thing that homeless people really need -- homes.

Another reason we have as many homeless people as we do is that they have either been priced out of the housing market, or they came to California believing that they can get a job and a place to live right away. Housing is expensive. A one-bedroom apartment near a school could run $1500 per month or more. If a person is "supposed to" spend no more than 1/3 of his or her income on housing, than that person needs to earn $4500 per month -- that's $54,000 per year -- not to mention coming up with the first two months' rent and a security deposit, which comes to (coincidentally) $4500.

In order to move into a regular one-bedroom apartment in southern California, you have to cough up as much as $4500 (or more). If you make less than $31,200 per year, you just cannot do it -- that's one month's income. How many homeless people do you think make even that much from panhandling, collecting cans and bottles, and selling junk, while still paying for food, clothing, and medicine?

We're estimated to have lost between two thirds and three quarters of our population in the 14th century, in three big waves of plague. It appeared to kill very randomly which drove people to religious extremes.

I watched a documentary on youtube about homelessness in California which I now can't find and it was a shock but I'm always hesitant to believe vids on other countries because pretty much all the youtube vids I've seen on the UK are misleading (to put it politely).

Excellent post, jimmy... I remember seeing a programme on tv about Hawaii and homelessness, too. My youngest brother(on the spectrum) was thrown out onto the streets at the tender age of 15. Later, he moved in with me, for a time. I needed more time with him, to help him, but he had so many demons to fight, and eventually moved back to his original home territory. He wound up with schizophrenia once someone got their hands on him and introduced him to drugs. He was 18 months old when he lost our mother ... if only she could have been saved ... My cousin works with the homeless in Adelaide, South Australia ...

in our capitalist system, the homeless are a feature and not a bug. they serve as a living warning to the middle class to keep its collective nose to the grindstone of capitalism, OR ELSE they will become homeless also. carrot and stick. i believe that, were this not so, the situation would not have been allowed to develop as it has.

Interesting point that I had not previously considered. I had wondered if the way healthcare was done in the US was partly for this reason though. What do you think?

yes, healthcare is part of the carrot and stick approach here.

Having spent several weeks trying to get help for a homeless person in California I can say that the organizations that are helping the homeless are overwhelmed and running like the Red Queen.

The average, law-abiding, white male homeless person in California has fewer options than women, parolees, the mentally ill, and minorities. Anyone who is a woman (esp. one with children), a minority member, schizophrenic, or recently released from prison (some exceptions here) is automatically considered a 'victim' of homelessness, while a white male who loses his job and can no long pay off his debts will lose his home, his credit rating, and especially his dignity because he will be considered to have brought it all on himself.

Given that the OP lives in Indiana, this topic seems to have become about California, whereas I think homelessness presents more or less the same concerns everywhere. There is a reason why a homeless person would gravitate to places having milder climates. Fortunately for Americans, somebody from a place with a harsh climate such as Michigan can relocate to somewhere warmer, if they can get transportation. I don't think SF is the best choice as it's often damp and chilly there. I can seeing spending one's nights in Oakland then crossing over to SF during the day to panhandle because of the enormous amount of wealth, and plentiful foot traffic, there.

The topic more-or-less started out about homelessness in California; but, yes, homelessness occurs all over this country; and with global warming, the need to emigrate to the southwest is becoming less of a need as the years go by.

Actually in the area where I live, the cost of housing is dramatically lower than California. As a result there are few homeless people because rather than being homeless, they live in inexpensive housing. Also there has been a shift over the past several decades where most jobs are in the big cities and most young people move to the big cities. As a result many houses sit vacant and are decaying away.

is that in a small town or in unincorporated part of county?

Both

the thought of all those cute little abandoned houses makes me cry.

In many cases, the houses are fixer uppers and need some work. But many sit idle for years.

Some towns consider them a blight and request grants to tear them down.